In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Camus
Sometimes I have to just trust that if I don’t write something intelligent and witty and thoughtful on my blog for a few days, even for many days, perhaps for lengthy periods of time, that all of my readers will not abandon me and will not think that I am a rotten human being. Who can not write anything of interest at all.
You’ve noticed, no doubt, that my intentions to participate in the Best of 09 daily blog postings started out well, but then faltered. Best laid plans of mine often do falter. I’ll go to all kinds of trouble and gymnastics to put the dogs crates back together and in a warm spot in the house so I can truly “crate” them and keep a certain Stella someone from choosing my favorite books to read and eat while I’m at the office on certain days of the week and then, because Buddha can make a person feel guilty just with the lift on one eyebrow, I’ll rush off to the movies with Emily Gilmore and not crate the dogs explaining to them that I know they know they should be in their crates and that Stella really does understand that this means she is not to read and eat any books while I’m gone only to return to just the tiniest bits and pieces of the spine and edges of pages of what was once a signed first edition of Jitterbug Perfume.
There’s a lesson there. I know it. I’m supposed to learn it. I’m trying to discern the meaning in eloquent words and metaphors digested into dog poop. I really am. If Mr. Robbins were truly available to me, I'd ask him to write me something witty to cheer me up. I know that he not only could, but that he would. He actually would probably find great humour (yes with the u) in the fact that Stella is systematically eating her way through my library of signed first editions of his novels. No doubt, he would at least be amused by her preference for his literature over the works of Sam Shepard.
This is my life. The life I share with my dogs. The life of good intentions that never get written about on my blog because I’m far too upset about the fact that Tom Robbins' eloquent and special inscription to me about eating my beets is now just dog poop on my lawn.
Thing is, I haven’t been too busy to write. I actually never want to be in a place where my life is filled with busy. Busy just isolates me. It just allows me to shut everyone else out. It just closes doors and removes opportunity. That is not living. That is filling time. I had that life, that life of filled time and no time for living. It nearly killed me, as I forgot how to breathe and how to love and how to do a whole host of other really important things that are required to truly live your life. I never want to be busy again.
No, I’m not too busy.
I am still. I am listening to my heart. I am aching for the rhythms that guide my soul. The whispers are faint, but I am hearing them.
As the light is about to return to all of us in this hemisphere, so will my own inner strength. It is these last few days when the days are their shortest that are always hardest for me. The light always returns. My light never really goes away. I just go still, go quiet, find my true center, and then like the firefly, I light up, I burn with the love of a thousand hearts and I glow.
